Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (1909)
A pipe-smoking man dozes off and is plagued by a tiny fairy living in his tobacco, who hides in his cigar box, upends his matches, and pops out of a cigarette; when he traps her under a glass she takes revenge in a burst of smoke and flame.
A trick film by Vitagraph’s J. Stuart Blackton, Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy deploys stop-motion and matte work so clean that Scientific American ran an article puzzling over how the illusions were achieved. It was selected for the National Film Registry.
Background
Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy is a 1909 trick film directed by J. Stuart Blackton for the Vitagraph Company, released August 10, 1909, with a running time of five minutes. A man dozing off after smoking is tormented by a tiny fairy, played by Gladys Hulette, who lives inside his tobacco box and sabotages his matches and cigarettes before taking fiery revenge when he traps her under a glass. The illusion of her miniature size was achieved with an in-camera mirror trick, filming Hulette at normal height but positioned far behind the smoker’s table so her reflection appeared small.
What to watch for
The effect so impressed contemporary audiences that Scientific American published an article attempting to explain how it was done, a notable instance of a popular-science magazine treating a short comedy as a serious technical puzzle. The film belongs to Blackton’s broader run of trick films at Vitagraph, where in-camera effects like matte work, stop-motion, and forced perspective were pushed toward comic rather than purely demonstrative ends. It was selected for the National Film Registry in 2003 for its historical and technical significance.
